Modernising the Bazaar

Modern Bazaar, the 45-year old gourmet food store chain of Delhi-NCR, has evolved notably as an imported food store to a regional supermarket chain catering to the aspirations of Delhi gourmands. Amidst the slew of national and international supermarket chains mushrooming across the city, Modern Bazaar has not only been successful in countering ever-changing competition, but grown steadily in terms of the number of stores. In an informal chat with Kunaal Kumar, Director, Modern Bazaar, POP finds out the chain's flavourful recipe of success. Edited Excerpts.
 
Why would a successful chain like Modern Bazaar restrict its identity to only Delhi-NCR?

No strategy works here, but I guess we are more comfortable in this region. It's been as long as 45 years and now we feel that we know the pulse of Delhiites. However, we are spreading our wings to NCR region, which is now the extensive character of the capital. Modern Bazaar is essentially a one-stop-shop for food enthusiasts who, for example, want to rustle up a meal of pasta than dal-chawal. Therefore, you have to understand we come at a category between something like Big Bazaar and Foodhall. Big Bazaar is more for the masses whereas Foodhall is for absolute upper crest. Our brand is more personalised, where we value our age-old relationships and interactions with the customers. Therefore, it's comfortable for us to stay at a place where we have been operating for as long as five decades.

Many outlets of Modern Bazaar have a dearth of sharp shopper marketing elements. Is it space constraint or lack of need as you already have a steady customer base?

We started long back as an imported food store in Vasant Kunj. Our journey goes way back to an era where visible shopper marketing hardly existed. As we expanded our business and new theories of shopper marketing landed in market, we evolved. If you look at our latest store at Cyberhub Gurgaon, it's sleek, plush, interactive and involves lot more in-store promotions and shopper marketing elements. We have incorporated elements like shelf-talkers and communicative branding in the store that has been ideated and executed by architect Sumit. There we are addressing a younger and savvier crowd, where these would yield better performance for the store. At the same time, if you look at our 4000 sq ft Vasant Vihar outlet, we have kept the archaic look intact. However, we have many new-age brands running their POP displays and interactions happening in that small store too. Yes, we have space constraints in the that outlet but we have not held ourselves back when it comes to updating our inventory or displaying all new-age brands.

Tell us about the brands that have tied up with you to run innovative shopper marketing displays and in-store activities?

The new two brands that we have tied up with are Bonhomia (a gourmet coffee brand) and Only Spices (a speciality spice brand from the US). Bonhomia is engaging customers with their innovating POP display and aggressive interactions with customers to upgrade their knowledge on coffee. The POP display unit with innovative lighting housing different products of Only Spices has been placed strategically at our non-vegeterian section. Similar activations are happening with brands like Del Monte, Farrell, Borges, Montany etc and we are already in talks with Patanjali to start something innovative and new.

Tell us about your expansion plan.

We already have seven stores across Delhi and Gurgaon. After the 6,500 sq ft store at Cyberhub Gurgaon, we are looking at another one in Gurgaon and the first one in Noida. We are not looking for franchisees, so our expansion mode may look a little sluggish. We are definite to open more doors of Modern Bazaar this year but only in this region.